Rumor: “Mac Fusion,” low-cost developer box at WWDC

Amidst a plethora of iPhone rumors, finally a Mac rumor for the rest of us, or …

What would a major Apple Event be without a new Mac? It would be Macworld Expo 2007 when the iPhone firestorm sucked every bit of Mac oxygen out of Moscone Center. On the eve of WWDC 2008, with a 3G iPhone and App Store imminent, it looked like the Mac would be cinder and ash again. But wait, TUAW has come to the rescue of Mac users who love their iPhones—but would like to see a little love sent the way of the Mac too—with Mac Fusion.

Building your applications for the Mac has never been easier. Mac Fusion was designed exclusively for new developers wishing to port their existing programs to the Mac without breaking the bank. Mac Fusion allows you to explore the power and stability of Mac OS X while keeping the ability to run alternate operating systems, such as Windows, or Linux, via Boot Camp.

Before people began tearing apart these images as fakes, it should at least be noted that this rumor falls in line with the rumored redesign of the Mac mini. As AppleInsider mongered in March, the brushed-metal stepchild of Macs was to finally be upgraded.

Among the improvements destined for the new lineup are 45-nanometer Core 2 Duo mobile chips starting at 2.1GHz with 3MB of shared L2 cache, an 800MHz front-side bus (up from 667MHz), and a step up to the same Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics processor employed by the existing line of 13-inch consumer MacBooks.

No details were given regarding the enclosure then, but Apple's obsession with thinness bordering on the anorexic is known well. Setting aside the seeming impossibility of adding an optical drive to an Apple TV case, one could almost believe this rumor. Unfortunately, there are other issues, such as:

The ad copy is found wanting.

Apple does not use the Windows logo.

The three logos clearly have a border.

Xcode 3.5 is listed in the bottom right, while Xcode is currently version 3.

"Apps" is capitalized in the tag line.

If that weren't enough, there's a reason the Apple TV is a crippled Mac with the stump of OS X and no optical drive. A real Mac at $299, or even $399, would cannibalize every model up the product line, including the "bank breaking" Mac Pro. Clearly, the Mac Fusion is outside Apple's product matrix looking in, and yet. . . .